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RE: The Bermuda petrel (Pterodroma cahow) was believed to have gone extinct in the 1620s, but was rediscovered 330 years later
only to be in a less than favorable environment and suffered from being in a place not 100% ideal for it, but it certainly seems with only 500,000 birds it was quite a small population, and I could imagine and virulent disease could go through the colony pretty quickly.
That's an interesting observation. I don't really think they can be that badly damaged by a virulent disease though, because petrels are able to stay out at sea for several years without ever landing on the ground, so I don't think that disease would be such a big problem for them.
Yes perhaps a virulent disease was a bad example, but having such relatively small numbers, along with a massive invasion of their native habitat would certainly have put tremendous pressure on the birds. The disease part came from me thinking about the amount of damage the conquistadors did to the natives on their travels. Decimating a population of birds would ot have been that hard to do.
Ah, I see the point you are making now :) And I agree, they don't really have anywhere to go after people began to settle down on the Bermuda islands, and other islands are very far away.